The Hateful Eight

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I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino movies. I love the very wordy dialogue and the extreme violence. I find it very entertaining. Before The Hateful Eight, I had never seen a movie in 70mm before in the theater and it was quite an experience. There was an overture where the opening credits music was played along with a graphic still of the movie. There was also a 12-minute intermission in the middle of it, which was actually nice! I didn’t need to get up for any more drinks or use the restroom, but I enjoyed that other people were able to do it and not be disruptive doing that while I was trying to watch the movie. The outside shots from the movie were impressive to see in 70mm. I was a bit confused about why that format was used on this movie though since only the beginning sequence was outside in the snow and a majority of the film was inside one room. Beyond that, even though The Hateful Eight was not my favorite Tarantino film, I thought it was decent. I will probably have to watch it again to see if it grows on me, which some of his films have done.

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Immediately after the movie, I was thinking that there were a bunch of guys in a room that didn’t trust each other and really wanted to kill one another. Did it have a point beyond that? Is that why I didn’t love it? That isn’t the case since that is basically the plot to Reservoir Dogs and that’s my favorite Tarantino film. I believe the main difference is I came to love each of those screwed-up characters in Reservoir Dogs and I really didn’t like any of them in The Hateful Eight. I didn’t care who died or who was killing someone else.

I feel like I might like this movie later with a repeat viewing. That happened to me when I watched Bulletproof, Tarantino’s movie half of Grindhouse. That one I felt like there was so much talking in the beginning with Kurt Russell that it was losing my attention. I felt like it was too much dialogue at once instead of interspersed throughout the movie like in his other films. After watching it again, it made sense since the last part of that movie is essentially a huge car chase. There isn’t a good time for talking at that point and also all that talking served a purpose later on in the story. I didn’t get that until the second time I watched it.

The cast in The Hateful Eight was amazing, which should not be surprising. I am not a huge Jennifer Jason Leigh fan so she was probably the person I liked the least, but I did feel for her when she was so completely bloody, dirty and gross. I was trying to imagine sitting around in all that fake blood and dirt while filming those scenes. I am wondering if I would have liked her character better with another actress. Samuel L. Jackson was probably the only one that I was hoping would not die. It was also fun to see him act opposite Tim Roth again.

Overall, I feel like I enjoyed my experience of going to the theater to watch this movie more than the actual film, but I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and watch it again at another time to see if I enjoy it more.

Grade: B-

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